Finance Monthly - JULY 2005
Ninth Edition

Systems
        1. Month End Reports
        2. ELF, FRS, Inquiry, HRMS:  ELF Delay
        3. Tip of the Month:  FEDEX
Deadlines
        4. Accounts Payable Deadlines
        5. Payroll:  July 8 Split Fiscal Year Payroll
        6. Year End:  Accruals
Other News
        7. Fiscal 2006:  New Year Budgets and ABR
        8. Finance Personnel Changes:  Farewell to Gil
        9. Who to Contact?
        10. Finance and Administration Website
        

1. MONTH END REPORTS: 
The June month end jobs (1st Close) have successfully run and the reports are currently available on Eprint.  Users can access Eprint through the Administrative Applications area in their employee portfolio and by using their FRS operator number as the UserID and FRS Password as the Eprint password.


2. ELF, FRS, INQUIRY, HRMS: ELF Delay
All Fiscal 2005 ELF journals approved by June 29 were processed in Fiscal 05.   At the end of the day on June 30 the ELF default year became 2006.  However, due to the fact that there are still 2 fiscal years open, there is now a one day delay between the time an entry is approved and the time it is posted to the account.  For example, if an entry is approved before 8:00 pm on a Tuesday, the entry will not be posted until the Wednesday nightly processing job and appear in the account on Thursday morning.  This delay allows us to ensure that entries are posted in the correct fiscal year. 

Finance and Administration offers training sessions on a variety of subjects for all Wesleyan employees.  All sessions are held in the ITS training room, SC523 on a regularly scheduled basis during the academic year.   Attendance is on a first come, first served basis. Employees may register for these sessions by completing the online form which can be found at:

http://www.wesleyan.edu/finance/misc/trainingScheduleRequest/index.html

Individual training on FRS can be requested by contacting Susan Pavis, spavis@wesleyan.edu, x2839. 


3. TIP OF THE MONTH:  FEDEX
Financial Services is pleased to announce that they have negotiated a new contract and entered into a partnership with Fed Ex for Wesleyan Station.  Users will be able to process shipments on line right at their desk-tops and take advantage of these great savings by using the Fed Ex Passkey Account.
 
On Thursday, June 23 there was the first training to teach users about this new service.  Due to great response, there will be additional training in September.  For more information about this service, please contact Lisa Davis at ext. 3385.
 
Office Supplies:
Look for the new contract catalogs from W.B. Mason and Staples!  They will be distributed within two weeks. 


4.  ACCOUNTS PAYABLE DEADLINES
At this point, most Fiscal 05 expenses should be invoiced or accrued.  See #6 below for information on accrual follow-up.  Thank you very much for your efforts and attention to these deadlines. 

All vouchers received by 4:00 pm on Thursday will be processed for payment for the following week's Friday check run. 

Please see the Finance and Administration website for additional policies and procedures related to Accounts Payable. 

Contact Tamara Harley at x2843 or Regina Sipples at x2842 with any questions


5. PAYROLL - July 8 Split Fiscal Year Payroll
The payroll paid on July 8 includes weekly and student payrolls for the week of June 27 through July 3.  This payroll will be split into two fiscal years whereby any payroll expense incurred on June 27-30 will be charged to Fiscal 05 and the July expense will be charged in Fiscal 06.  Please keep this in mind when reviewing the Fiscal 05 account status.


6.  YEAR END:  Accruals
Again, thank you very much for your efforts and attention to the year end procedures and deadlines. 

Special follow up procedures are required for anyone who has requested an expense accrual.  If an accrual was requested to Susan Pavis for a Fiscal 05 expense that was not yet invoiced, the invoice to support that expense is due by July 11.  When the department receives the invoice, an a/p voucher should be completed and approved as normal with the following exception:  Leave the ACCOUNT NUMBER and FISCAL YEAR BLANK, and SEND TO SUSAN PAVIS, who will be sure that the invoiced is paid in a timely manner. It is very important that this be followed in order to avoid the potential that your account is charged twice for the same expense.  Please contact Susan if it is proving difficult to meet the July 11 invoice deadline. 

It is important to note that, in order to qualify as a Fiscal 05 expense, the purchases must have been RECEIVED (not just ordered) by June 30 or services performed by June 30.  If, based on the invoices that we receive, it is determined that this is not the case for any material accrued expenses, the accrual will need to be reversed.  An annual audit is conducted in August by an outside accounting firm and this is a rule that they test.  Thanks for your cooperation.


7.  FISCAL 2006:  New Year Budgets and ABR
Fiscal 2006 operating budgets are now reflected in the object code subgroups.  New for Fiscal 2006 - for most operating accounts, budgets will initially be put in the previously discussed object code subgroups.  These subgroups were set up for budget implementation.  The actual expenditure relating to that subgroup budget should be charged to the specific expense code (see our website document at http://www.wesleyan.edu/finance/financeDept/reporting/objcodes.html for more detailed information on the subgroup concept).

In order to facilitate reporting, we have turned on the financial system tool called ABR (Automatic Budget Reallocation).  This tool flags the subgroup object code for ABR and identifies that code with a particular range.  Whenever an expense is charged to an object code that falls within that range, budget will be pulled from the associated group code, to the specific code, resulting in a balance available amount at the subgroup level.

Please contact Sun Chyung (x2249) or Ellen Milstone (x3153) in Financial Planning if you have any questions on new year operating budgets or concepts.

In addition, please note that we have also been successful in entering Fiscal 2006 endowment budgets on July 1 as well.  These are 6-ledger accounts and the budgets will be on object code 2001.  These accounts do not utilize the ABR feature. 

The endowment budgets will reflect new year budgets only.  Any endowment carryforwards cannot be reflected until the old fiscal year is closed out (early August).  In addition, Fiscal 06 budgets in gift or grant accounts also cannot be set until the old year is completely closed out.  If you have any questions with endowment, gift or grant budgets, please contact Kimberly Savinelli.

8.  FINANCE PERSONNEL CHANGES - Farewell to Gil
Gil Thornfeldt, Director of Financial Services, has accepted a position as Business Manager at the Taft School as of July 8, 2004.  Throughout Gil's tenure at Wesleyan, he has been an integral part of many initiatives, most recently including the Commerial Card, a Training Calendar, numerous Purchasing initiatives, Electronic Forms, to name just a few.   We will greatly miss his wit and wisdom but wish him luck in his new endeavor.


9. WHO TO CONTACT
Do you need assistance on an issue or problem and don't know who to contact? Find your contact by clicking on the following link:
http://www.wesleyan.edu/finance/misc/contactInformation/

10. FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION WEBSITE
The Finance and Administration website has a lot of information available for use at your fingertips.  Be sure to check out www.wesleyan.edu/finance. periodically for answers to your most frequently asked questions.  We welcome comments and suggestions as we work in making this a reference destination for your daily work.




SUBMISSIONS FOR FINANCE MONTHLY
What topics would you like to see included in this monthly communication?  Do you have a system tip you'd like to share?  Finance Monthly will be emailed on a monthly basis, corresponding with the availability of month end financial reports.  Items for inclusion are due five business days before the end of each month and can be submitted to Valerie Nye, vnye@wesleyan.edu.